Walter Finch
SPAIN has experienced a blistering and unprecedented start to the summer, with record-breaking temperatures in the south sending thermometers soaring above 40C across multiple provinces.
Incredibly, by June 8, Sevilla Airport had already registered four days above 40C – more than in the entire month of June during any previous year since records began in 1951.
To put that into context: no other year on record has seen more than two days above 40C in Seville before the second week of June.
In fact, the searing early heat has beaten the number of extreme days compared to all other years combined for the same period by 125%, according to provisional data released by AEMET, Spain’s national weather agency.
READ MORE: Hottest start to June since modern records began with ‘sticky nights’ affecting Spain’s Costa Blanca
It goes some way to dispelling the claims that ‘Spain is always hot in the summer’, and follows what meteorologists are calling an ‘absolutely exceptional’ heat episode.
On Sunday June 8, the mercury hit 42.9C in Moron de la Frontera, just south-east of Sevilla, with Montoro in Cordoba not far behind at 42.7C.
Other towns in Sevilla province scorched past the 42C mark too, including Carmona (42.7C), Fuentes de Andalucía (42.6C), and the airport itself, which also recorded 42.6C.
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Around forty AEMET weather stations across the country hit or surpassed 40C on Sunday alone.
The agency confirmed that these are the earliest temperatures over 42C ever recorded in Seville, beating the previous early-June high set on 12 June 2012.
While southern Spain is set to cool slightly this week, temperatures are expected to climb further in the north.
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